Chapter Twenty
Animals of all kinds, both wild and domestic, inhabited the immediate area around the mission station. In order to keep them from eating the feed we had for our own animals, we hired men to stand guard, keeping the strays away.
They held their posts deep into the night because of the very real possibility of bandits paying us a visit. So every evening, when daylight started to mingle with dusk, I checked to ensure that the guard for the night shift had showed up. They didn’t carry any weapons, so one of the guards asked me if I had something he could use, something to keep within reach in case he had to protect himself. Since I had recently bought a dangerous looking souvenir, a spear with a four-foot handle, I offered it to him for protection. When dawn arrived and he traded places with the day shift guard, he left the spear on the back porch.
One stifling Sunday afternoon, air perfectly still and not a cloud in the sky, I was sitting at our kitchen table answering some of the many letters we received from friends and neighbors back home (one day we got twenty-seven letters). Because we appreciated them so much, Jan and I were diligent about writing back.
I glanced up just as two stray donkeys trotted up to the house, headed straight for the tasty flowers that Jan had planted. I jumped up to chase them away, angry with the guards for not doing their job.
Grabbing the spear from the back porch, I took off after them, running as fast as I could, intent on touching at least one of them in the rump with the spear, discouraging any further visits. But with the high altitude and furnace-like heat, I quickly realized I wouldn’t be able to run this fast for very long. Stopping to take aim, I thrust the spear into their direction, hoping they would continue to run all the way off the property. Horrified, I watched as the spear landed dead-center into the rump of one of the donkeys, deep enough to stay put. Mind you, I had been warned that if I ever killed someone’s chicken, either by accident or on purpose, it would be extremely expensive because I would have to pay not only for that chicken, but also for all the future generations that chicken could have produced, had it lived. What in the world would a donkey cost me?
Somehow, I had to remove that spear. There was no way around it. I took off running after them, once again. As they made an abrupt turn around the corner of a building, I knew this was my last chance to redeem myself. Using every last bit of my energy that I had, I lunged for the spear and got my hand around it. I pulled, hard, and it detached from the donkey just as I fell to the ground, utterly exhausted. As I lay there in the dust, watching the donkeys trot down the road, I sheepishly looked around, hoping that no one had see this embarrassing episode. For the first time ever, there didn’t appear to be anyone around. I got up, limping into the house, the bent spear in my hand.
Jan, resting in bed and reading a letter, looked up and asked me where I had gone. Since I was hoping to forget it ever happened and was desperately trying to catch my breath, I blurted out, “Oh nothing much. I just chased two donkeys away from the house.” As I sprawled into the nearest chair, trying to get enough air into my lungs to breath normally again, I heard someone laughing, uncontrollably. There, looking in the window and laughing so hard that he could barely stand up, was Pastor Hofer. I was mortified. “Oh no. Don’t tell me you saw the whole thing.”
Between his fits of laughter, he replied, “Saw what? What did you do?” I had no choice but to tell him the whole story while he tried his best to stop his hysterical laughing. At the time, any humor in the situation escaped me completely.
Ever since that day, I always kept my eyes open, alert to the possibility of finding a wounded donkey somewhere. But I never did. The story, thanks to Pastor Hofer’s efforts, ended up spreading throughout the mission station and I quickly earned the nickname the donkey chaser. During our six-month stay in Ethiopia, I lost a total of twenty-seven pounds. I’m not sure if donkey chasing had anything to do with that, but it sure felt like it did.
It was a sad day, the day we left Ethiopia. As we were packing our belongings and souvenirs, we found eleven-year-old Teklay, one of the beloved children we’d come to know, hunkered down in one of our large boxes. He wanted to come with us so badly, he cried as we helped him climb out of the box.
Goodbyes and hugs, along with many tears, were shared all afternoon as we finished packing and Pastor Hofer arrived to drive us to the airport in Axum to catch our plane. The airstrip was an uneven grass field, the ticket office was a thatched hut, and the airplane, a DC3, was nicknamed the Vomit Comet because it gave passengers such a turbulent ride.
We came to know and love the people of Ethiopia. They were the most compassionate, giving individuals we had ever encountered, sharing everything they had, even though they had very little. The sheer joy they greeted each morning with, their excitement at just being alive, was inspiring and motivating. Even though Jan and I were sent halfway around the world to teach these amazing people, they taught us more than we could have ever imagined.
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